Prime Suspect I (1991)

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Overview

This drama, originally broadcast in two episodes, is the first instalment in the hugely popular Prime Suspect series.

After the detective in charge of a gruesome murder investigation suffers a heart attack, DCI Jane Tennison seeks to prove her worth by taking charge of the case. Faced with hostility from colleagues and criminals alike, the policewoman must struggle to assert her authority in the male-dominated world of policing.

Having linked the murders to a series of violent attacks stretching back more than a decade, Tennison is determined to charge the prime suspect, an apparently ordinary businessman called George Marlow. Obtaining sufficient evidence to secure a conviction proves far harder than she and her team had imagined, however, particularly as Marlow's tough-talking common-law wife, Moyra, clearly intends to stand by her man.

Notes

The character of Moyra Henson is based on a real woman who lied to the police for her husband. As research for the role, Zoe observed the woman at work in a department store. 'I hid behind the stocking rack so I could watch her. That was a strange thing to do,' she later remarked (see ZoŽ's comments about Prime Suspect I in her BOMB Magazine interview).

For her performance in Prime Suspect, ZoŽ earned a Best Actress BAFTA Award nomination in 1991.

Press coverage

ZoŽ, Helen Mirren, and John Bowe 'bring a fearsome intensity and realism to the screen', declared Brett Arends in the Express.